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51 Ways to Blog as a Novelist
We all know that blogging is one of the best ways to get attention in today's Internet world. A blog is a godsend to your website, bringing it traffic, fans, and more. But you have to post regularly.
Stuck for what to blog about? Here are some tips for novelists, but the same tips can apply to writers of nonfiction, memoirs, children's books, business books, and more.
- Review other novels, especially from other lesser-known novelists.
- Write a blog post using the voice of one of your main characters.
- Have that main character tell some side stories not included in the novel.
- Write about the setting - time and/or place. Use some of the research you did to ensure that your novel was accurate.
- Invite your readers to review your book. Feature their testimonials on your blog.
- Interview some of your readers: via Q&A text or via an Internet radio show or via a teleseminar.
- Podcast your book, one section at a time.
- Write about trends in your genre.
- Write about your favorite novelists, especially those that write in your genre. Include their photos and a sampling of their books.
For the rest of the 51 ways, see: http://blog.bookmarket.com/2011/06/45-ways-to-blog-as-novelist-tips-for.html
If you like this list, help me add more. Email: johnkremer@bookmarket.com.
Comment Wall
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Comment by Neil Ostroff on October 4, 2012 at 12:41pm
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Money to make money
Well, here I am again at that crossroads where I need to do something to push me beyond the steady, but stagnant sales of the last month. It appears blogging and posting on free sites has worn thin and most of the people who I got interested in my books have already purchased them. So, what do I do next? I already invested $100 bucks into a KND book of the day sponsorship for DROP OUT in November, and I have two more sponsorships with Kindle Boards Book of the Day in December, one for AFTER and one for SILENT INVASION. But is that enough? With Kindle releasing new versions at cheaper prices, should I do more? This next year could be the absolute golden year for Amazon and Kindle and may be the last time they will rule the marketplace. There’s so many new ereader devices coming out that it is inevitable Kindle will slow. My books are available on these new devices so I’m not too worried about losing any of my target audience, I just believe the time to take action with Kindle is now. That said, how much money do I invest? I will admit that I have been putting royalty checks and extra bits of money here and there for advertising and promotional purposes and the nest egg has grown quite a bit. I’ve been hemming and hauling on KND’s new promotional package that blasts the book to over 100,000 opt-in readers. Readers who are looking to buy ebooks. It all comes down to numbers, of course. The risk of investing more than $300 in a two-day campaign is frightening especially if it yields little or no results. However, if just a small percentage, (less than one percent) of the people who receive the blast purchases the book, the campaign will make money. If I decide to do the sponsor it will be for DROP OUT, which is by far my best seller and has gotten the most rave reviews, not just on Amazon, but on at least a dozen other sites. It also won Indie Book of the Day. I’ll probably ponder the investment for the rest of this afternoon but in the end I’ll probably book it. After all, it takes money to make money, right?
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Wow, two-hundred!
Wow, I’ve surpassed the two-hundred followers mark on my blog! I want to thank all who follow me especially because I know you follow this blog because you want to. I didn’t go to any threads just to collect followers to have high numbers. I painstakingly wrote my articles and promoted my blog to writers and readers. Very few of you who follow me are my personal friends, although I’d like to think that everyone who reads my stuff is a friend. You all know what I mean, I didn’t solicit you. I hope the information I’ve provided and experiences that I documented over the past year-and-a-half this blog has been around has proved useful and my own mistakes in the indie, self-publishing world have saved you from making the same. Especially when it came to all the money I blew learning how to properly market and promote my novels and doing everything wrong at first. I’ll continue to provide my insights and learning, my ponderings and musings, and continue to write novels for as long as I have readers. I’d probably do it even if I had no readers. I’m sure so would most of you.
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It’s hard
No, mind my isn’t in the gutter right now, I’m talking about how hard it is to sell books. I’ve been writing since I learned how to hold a pencil, I’ve won contests, had a top NY agent, and have written and/or published a dozen novels. People ask me where my ideas come from and I can’t give them an answer. All I know is that ideas for stories DO come and the urge to capture them on paper is overwhelming. I’ve been known to jot down notes on whatever I can find, tiny pieces of scrap paper, toilet paper, even my own skin. Writing has always come easily and naturally to me and I get insurmountable joy sitting in front of my computer and living in and creating worlds inside my own mind. Some people say there’s nothing better than reading a good book on a rainy or snowy day. There is one thing I can think of that’s better: writing one. So why have I titled this post It’s Hard? Because trying to make a living as a writer is a completely different animal than just being a writer. Marketing and promotion is tedious and grueling, but necessary of course. The best piece of advice I ever got as a young writer was a very successful author telling me that making it in this field was incredibly hard and takes years of commitment and devotion and that most people give up or fail to achieve any level of success. But that’s okay. Because if it were easy than everyone would be rich and famous. And that ain’t the case.
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Goodbye paperbacks
Nook just unveiled its new tablet today. Watching the interview on CBS this morning with the president of the company he was asked if he thought traditional paperback books will disappear in thirty years. Although, he wouldn’t give a definitive answer (because Barnes and Noble still have over 600 bookstores nationwide) it was apparent that he thought so. Though Barnes and Noble have outlived most retail book outlets, I do believe those days are numbered. Getting into the ebook revolution by designing the new Nook is a wise idea when Amazon is clearly taking over the market. And with the Kindle App, you don’t even need to own a Kindle to buy from the electronic store and read a book. As I’ve watched my book sales on Amazon rise steadily each month, I’ve also watched my Nook and Kobo sales stagnate. It could simply be the popularity of the Kindle and ease of the Kindle store that feeds my sales or it could be that I haven’t put nearly the effort into selling to Nook and Kobo through Smashwords. It’s my own ignorance that keeps this market low on my priorities. I simply don’t know much about the Nook and its store. That’s all about to change. I’m dedicating the month of October to getting myself setup on the Nook sites and their boards. Though I was loyal to Amazon when I was in their Select program, it’s time to branch out and spread my promotional efforts around the globe. Look out Nook, here I come!
http://www.neilostroff.blogspot.com
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Comment by Jim Musgrave on September 25, 2012 at 12:16am
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I am a publisher, and now I have a business that matches authors with the right editor (English majors all). We also do book reviews for writers and plant them on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords. It's called English Majors Reviewers and Editors, LLC. Perhaps some of you might need the help some day.
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Writing the end
After almost eleven months of continuous, daily writing I finally wrote ‘The End” on IMAGINATION. Well, I don’t actually write those words since it’s not industry standard anymore, but I did write the final, conclusive last sentence of the novel. Ah, what a feeling! This being my eleventh book, it still never ceases to amaze me how a story can take on a life of its own. If I were to look at my original notes on the concept for the story from last year and compare it to what I actually created, it would probably give a good laugh. In the original concept the main character was an alien. When you read IMAGINATION you’ll discover the humor in that. Though I’ve finished the novel, it is still a ways from hitting the marketplace. I need to give it a couple of good, thorough reads, looking for any mistakes or poor/boring sentences. When I can read it without pausing to correct, it will be ready for a professional edit. Not sure who I’m going to use at this point. Once those corrections are made it’s designing the cover time. I already have an idea of what I want it to be. Then to my formatter who will set it up for the marketplace. Then what? Well, to be honest, I usually feel a little depressed and disconnected after finishing a book when I’m not sure what my next book will be. Sometimes the idea for a novel won’t come for months after I finish the last one. I usually wander around in a semi-fog desperate for an idea that will keep me interested for at least the year it usually takes me to write a book. Sure, I’ll market and promote my other works and concentrate on IMAGINATION, but that still leaves hours free when I would normally be writing original stuff. I’ve tried short stories in my spare time, but I’m just not that kind of a writer. I like to develop a concept or idea fully and that usually takes me at least 50,000 words to achieve. Sometimes writing ‘The End” can almost be as scary as writing that first sentence.
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Ebooks are forever
Ebooks are forever. Think about this sentence for a moment. You write a novel, get it formatted, have a nice cover made up, get an ISBN, and then download it onto Kindle, or Smashwords, or any of the hundreds of ebook distributors, and poof, it’s available globally to anyone with an ereader. Not only that, it will be available until the end of time. That means fifty years from now if I want to show my great grandchild one of my books, all they’ll have to do is type in the title and, poof again, there it will be. Talk about immortalizing yourself for all eternity. Isn’t that what art is all about? I’m very lucky to be living in an age where I can imprint myself to the world and be remembered forever through my books. I do feel sad for all the paperback writers throughout the last centuries whose hard work and effort only got them a six-week shelf life for their masterpiece and then their book would disappear forever, going out of print and into the paper shredder. With ebooks I may still be getting royalties when I’m a hundred years old, I can write and publish what I want and let the worldwide public decide if the book is good, without being evaluated for the amount of profit the story might generate. My novels won’t sit stacked on some shelf in the back of a dusty old bookstore (if bookstores still exist in five years). They will always be fresh and ready for download, ready to draw a new reader into my crazy, noir, eccentric, imaginary worlds. It’s an incredibly comforting thought knowing my stories will be around forever, like the myths of ancient Greece or fables and folklore of olden times. In a way, ebooks will immortalize me and define me as a novelist until the end of time. Now, if I could just make a healthy living at it. Haha.
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Comment by Santonio Thompson on September 15, 2012 at 1:10pm
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From publishamerica.net
Repin Edit Check out my new book, When A Women's Fed Up . sites.google.com/...
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Comment by Author-Poet Aberjhani on September 15, 2012 at 12:15pm
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What happens when one of the world's most accomplished novelists--as in Philip Roth--finds himself in the middle of his own classic literary sensibilities and the 21st century digital divide? Well, something like what's described in my blog here on Book Marketing Network of course: Novelist Philip Roth's Dilemma and Every Author's Challenge
Aberjhani
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Good books
It used to be that an aspiring author would write a novel and then painstakingly send out SASE’s (remember them) hoping to land an agent. If the author did land an agent, then the author would hope for a publishing contract. If by miracle of miracles the agent actually sells the book, then eighteen months later it comes out in the bookstore (remember those) and the author starts doing a grueling schedule of signings hoping to recoup more money in sales than the advance received. The ebook revolution has changed all that. Sure, there are a lot of people publishing crappy books that they type out in a few afternoons. Some even sell a few copies. But readers are wary of junk writers and Amazon allows a sample to see how the book flows and if it hooks you. All my samples hook the reader and have them wanting to read more (I hope). But now, just providing samples may not be enough to grab an audience. Now, there are book trailers that need to be made and then uploaded to every video site around (I have yet to make a trailer, but know I should). There is Pinterest, and Facebook, and Yahoo groups, and blogs to be written, and sites to upload samples and links. It takes a lot of time to get noticed as a writer these days. And therein lay the secret of success. Writers quick to publish their books are usually people who want the instant gratification of saying they wrote a book without the months or years it takes to write a really good novel (with the exception a few genius writers). These same writers don’t have the tenacity and patience it takes to slowly build up a readership. Those quick-to-publish writers will grow bored of the daunting process of getting noticed and eventually their books will fade from view. It’s almost like a natural selection for stories. Bad books will be weeded out leaving the good. Readers may have to take a little more time finding the gems amidst the dirt instead of relying on large publishing conglomerates to tell them what to read and what’s good for the masses, but they will. I think the birth of indie publishing will change the very core of what a reader can expect in a book. Stories won’t be sweetened up, or toned down, or made politically correct to sell more copies. Good novels will become true works of art and writing will blossom to a new degree of freedom and creativity. And we will all benefit from that.
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